


the fear of falling apart

by matskreider



Series: tumblr prompts [6]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Canon-Typical Misogyny, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slurs, kane makes an appearance briefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 22:34:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13257999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matskreider/pseuds/matskreider
Summary: It’s not a secret that Tuukka doesn’t like to talk hockey at home. He really doesn’t like blurring the lines between work and pleasure, despite the fact that he’s dating two of his teammates. Patrice was good at following the unspoken rule, and more often than not appreciated being able to shrug off his leadership role in exchange for good food and sleep. They could all benefit from spending some time away from the rink.Brad, however, often found himself caught up in whatever transpired on the ice. Sometimes it was hard for him to check his jersey at the door and let it go. He had enough respect for Tuukka to not talk to him directly about it – especially if he was beating himself up over his own game play, because there was a chance Tuukka would bluntly reaffirm whatever he was saying, before letting him know that there’s always chances to improve – but it was hard not to talk to Patrice. He wanted to, and sometimes he could, but he had trouble understanding grey spaces, and didn’t know if Tuukka’s definition of “home” included his actual house as well. As if he was going to somehow hear them through the shower upstairs and unleash hell if Brad so much as breathed the words “overtime loss.”





	the fear of falling apart

**Author's Note:**

> i wasn't sure how to tag for this but basically the main content warning here is that the bruins are playing the blackhawks, kane boards brad and says some shit, and then it's brad recovering with his boyfriends. 
> 
> title from panic! at the disco's "this is gospel"

It’s not a secret that Tuukka doesn’t like to talk hockey at home. He really doesn’t like blurring the lines between work and pleasure, despite the fact that he’s dating two of his teammates. Patrice was good at following the unspoken rule, and more often than not appreciated being able to shrug off his leadership role in exchange for good food and sleep. They could all benefit from spending some time away from the rink.

Brad, however, often found himself caught up in whatever transpired on the ice. Sometimes it was hard for him to check his jersey at the door and let it go. He had enough respect for Tuukka to not talk to him directly about it – especially if he was beating himself up over his own game play, because there was a chance Tuukka would bluntly reaffirm whatever he was saying, before letting him know that there’s always chances to improve – but it was hard not to talk to Patrice. He wanted to, and sometimes he could, but he had trouble understanding grey spaces, and didn’t know if Tuukka’s definition of “home” included his actual house as well. As if he was going to somehow hear them through the shower upstairs and unleash hell if Brad so much as breathed the words “overtime loss.”

It wasn’t that dramatic, it never was. But there was a part of Brad’s brain that wondered,  _ What if?  _ He lived to push the envelope, but this time the envelope can push back. He didn’t really want to see the tears that inevitably formed, but maybe if he just kept it to himself he wouldn’t spill over the edges. He wouldn’t become something that he didn’t want others to see.

So he learns how to internalize it all, learns to seal it up and let it out on the ice, or how to shove it so far away from the surface that no one will have to deal with it, ever. The problem is, if you shove enough things under the carpet, eventually the carpet won’t cover them all. Eventually, it gets easier to tell. Eventually, it paints a target on your back.

They’re playing the Hawks, which is a hard game in and of itself, and Brad’s at his chirpiest to distract from the mental toll of the game. They’re up 2-1, it’s a fragile lead, and there’s less than five minutes left in the second. He’s gunning for the puck in the back corner, racing by Tuukka in his crease, and he’s boarded by Kane. He struggles a bit, just trying to get the puck free from between their skates and the wall, when he hears Kane’s voice in his ear.

“Bet you like having a guy on top of you, huh? Fucking pussy,” he growls into Brad’s ear. “The team slut, aren’t you? Fucking fag.”  

He’s not really aware of what’s happening, and he can only vaguely hear the sounds of the whistle going and hands trying to pull him and Kane apart, black and white mixing with red as the players pair off to keep each other from intervening. He gets separated, pushed back by a linesman, and he feels another player behind him. He turns around, ready to start swinging again, but Tuukka catches his wrist before he can do something stupid, like try to punch through a goalie mask.

They stare at each other, Brad’s face flushed a bright red, blood running down his face from a cut by his ear. Before they can say anything of consequence, the linesman is dragging Brad away to the box, the other taking Kane to his. The fucking bastard has enough wits about him to grin as he sits down in the box, while Brad stares straight ahead and tries not to rise to the challenge.

He doesn’t talk about it in the locker room, just accepts medical attention to get the bleeding to stop. He doesn’t bring it up on the bench, and he doesn’t bring it up on the ice. He keeps chirping because that’s what he’s  _ supposed  _ to do, and he doesn’t say anything as they board the team plane for their flight out of Chicago back to Boston.

Patrice sits next to him and doesn’t pressure him, just pulls him in tight against his side. Brad tries to stop his shaking, and by the time they wind up back at the airport, he extracts himself from Patrice’s arms, mumbling something about going back to his own place.

“Are you sure?” Tuukka asks, his brows furrowed. “We were kinda hoping that…” As he trails off, Patrice continues.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but we’d really love it if you came back with us…please,” Patrice continues. “And maybe you could talk about what happened? If you wanted?”

Brad feels stuck, between two impossible options: go back to his own place, empty and cold as it was, and spend the night in self loathing, or go to Tuukka’s place and have to shove all of this deep down inside because he wasn’t supposed to talk shop when at home. Even though they’d won the game, he shouldn’t have anything to complain about, right? And he doesn’t so he just picks up his bag and wordlessly waits. Patrice takes his arm and Tuukka slings an arm over his shoulders, and the three of them walk that way through the Boston cold to get to the car.

The ride back is quiet, and coming back home at the early hour of 2am usually means going right to bed. But Brad still feels like the inside of an airplane, and so he quietly excuses himself to the guest bathroom to shower. He makes it about 5 minutes under the hot spray of the water, the sting from the cut above his ear, before he starts crying.

He doesn’t even know why he’s crying. It’s not like he hasn’t heard worse before, and he knows that it’s an occupational hazard, especially with the stuff he does on the regular. It’s the smallest thing, but added onto everything else that he’s bottled up over the years, it just pushes him right to the edge.

An unknown amount of time passes, with him just sobbing into the shower spray, mechanically cleaning himself, before he’s just standing under the water as it slowly turns cold. Then the shower door is opening and a hand is shutting off the water before a warm towel is wrapped over his shoulders and down his body like his mom used to do when he was a kid.

He’s being picked up, then, and he burrows into the embrace, feeling so small and so raw. Hands dry him off and help him get dressed, and then he’s just crying into whoever is holding him. Somehow, he winds up in that someone’s lap, sitting in their bed, a set of hands trying to gently detangle his hair, with another rubbing down his side and back, soothing his hiccupping sobs.

“There you go, just breathe. Gotta let yourself calm down.”  _ Tuuks,  _ his mind helpfully supplies.

“Doing so well for us, petit amour.”  _ Patrice. _

He doesn’t have words for this right now, but he thinks he’s talked enough. It’ll pass, and he’ll tell them what happened later. When he does, they’ll be outraged, and Brad will feel like an idiot once again. But they’ll let him know that they aren’t mad at him, but at the situation itself. And it might not do much to erase the pile of wrongdoings, stuck in jars dating back to being twelve years old, sealed up so tight he doesn’t even know how to crack them open; but it is a start.

**Author's Note:**

> once again, hmu on [tumblr](http://matskreider.tumblr.com/) if you wanna request more or talk about these boys. this one got kinda dark and i don't...know why.....


End file.
